The Simple Things
by Xerios
Summary: TFA - Sometimes it's the simplest things in life that cause the biggest problems.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** : I don't own Transformers. If I did, I wouldn't be here now, would I?

**Note **: Yep, Transformers : Animated has even taken over my life. Thanks to my psychic ability to see into the future by exactly seven days, I can watch two episodes every Saturday morning if I want to. This story starts directly after the episode 'Return of the Headmaster' which was, while still totally full of supreme ownage, NOT the best episode ever.

**The Simple Things**

Chapter One

There was some low key mumbling about the laws of physics and why quantum mechanics should be left to the professionals. It filtered through over the transmission despite Helix's attempt to keep his voice down. Fortunately, no one was paying much attention to his words just yet, not that it mattered much since his everyday speech was normally littered with the technical jargon of his chosen field. As of right now, there was a fifteen second lag because of the distance he was transmitting at and the added inconvenience of data transference. He hated this method, not only because of the heavy encryptions involved with long range communications, but because so many things could go wrong with it.

At the very least there could be file corruption during the transfer process.

At the worst it would fail to even reach its intended destination.

He had explained this several times, but no, this was too important a situation to wait for a personal data delivery. There had been several breems of argument over this, but in the end his station had been threatened and if there was one thing Helix did not want, it was to be demoted.

"All right," he muttered, glaring at the computer screen as it announced that the file was received. "Let's see what we've got here."

Despite his pessimism, it had transferred through a hundred percent complete. This only served to put him in an even sourer mood, as now he could no longer rant about faulty spot beams and satellite relays. However, he could grumble about the quality of the scanners used to provide the data in the file, which he did.

"Not even a full spectrum analysis."

:_Just work with what we've given you, Helix. You don't need a full spectrum analysis to be able to confirm what it is_:

Helix threw the comm. screen a grouchy glare.

"It'd be nice though," he grumbled, examining the screen. It showed a blue-green diagram of what appeared to be a piece of broken crystal, with several text displays scrolling alongside it pointing out various little factoids. It didn't take long for him to run a cross-reference program, the terminal barely humming as it spat out the results on an EPD readout sheet. He snatched it up out of the print tray and skimmed over the page before turning his scowl back to the communications monitor. "It's definitely a piece of the Allspark, Ultra Magnus. Edge marks on two sides are ragged and sheared inward, which indicates that something struck it with enough force to crack inwards against the geometric seams. The other three edges are concurrent with the seams, with no shearing, which would indicate outward motion or deliberate disassembly."

:_This, at least, confirms what we were told by Optimus Prime. Can you estimate how many pieces there are, or would that require a full spectrum scan?_:

"If it had been separated equally at the seams, there would be twelve congruent pieces," Helix said, turning back to the diagram. He tapped in a couple of commands on the control panel, pulling up a reconstruction program. Within seconds a model of the Allspark rotated into view, with a flashing blue section indicating where exactly the broken shard had come from. "However, as this shard proves that wasn't the fact, it could be anywhere between twelve and twenty-five pieces. That's all I can get from this scan. If you find another one, get an analysis of it and send it up. I'll be able to tell you more if I can compare the two."

:_Of course_.:

"Oh, and Magnus?"

:_Yes_?:

"These shards may just be pieces, but they're still imbued with Allspark energy. Without structure, that energy is completely unfocused. If the incident you described at this human manufacturing plant is any indicator, then anything of a mechanical nature that these shards touch is liable to malfunction on a dangerous scale."

:_Noted. I will call again if we find another shard_:

* * *

Cael remembered when his sister's headaches first began. They had started out small, seemingly caused by the mundane everyday things that usually made such a symptom appear. Too much television to begin with, which was always a problem for anyone under the age of ten. She had a bunch of favorite shows and all the schedules memorized, like a living version of the TV Guide Channel. She tended to get upset when the networks decided to twist things around for a movie special or some other event. When the headaches appeared and he told her to stop watching so much TV, she'd thrown a fit.

That had been two years ago.

Today she was trying to stay within the lines of one of pictures inside one of the coloring books he'd brought her. There were several crayons scattered about, some broken and worn down. He leaned over to pick one up that had rolled off the table and onto the floor. The wrapped had been ripped off and it held the tell-tale smudge marks of other colors. Setting it back on the desk he made a mental note to stop by the store to get her a new box.

She paused in her scribbling, eyes settling on the crayon as it rolled from where he'd tossed it back onto the table. Judging, maybe, if it was one of the colors she needed to finish the picture. After a moment, she set down her current color and picked it up, setting the dulled end against a blank spot on the page to continue her drawing. However, she pressed too hard and the crayon snapped as she went to drag it over the paper, creating a jagged line over an area she'd already filled in.

"Rrrrr..."

"Its okay, Ray," Cael said, taking the now broken one away and handing her an intact crayon of the same hue. "This one's the same color, look."

"S'not."

"Yes it is."

"Nuh uh, s'not!"

She shook her head in an exaggerated fashion and tossed it aside before proceeding to tear the picture out from the coloring book. She crumpled it up and tossed it on the floor as well before proceeding to grab up a purple crayon from the box. She ignored Cael as he reached down to pick up her previous picture, smoothing the paper out before folding it properly. He stuck it in his jacket pocket, then glanced down at his watch. He always kept it set five minutes ahead of schedule, a habit that always kept him from being late.

"Hey, Ray, I have to get to work, okay?"

She didn't glance up, but slowed down her aggressive scribbling rate as if listening.

"I'll come see you when I get off my shift, alright?"

"N'butter?"

"Yeah, I'll bring you some Nutterbutters," he agreed with a faint smile, reaching over to pat her shoulder. In the past, he would've tousled her hair, but even though it had started to grow back, it wasn't long enough for that particular action. "I'll get you pop rocks too, how about that?"

She grinned at this one, letting out a rather loud giggle before returning to her coloring page.

Cael watched her for a moment longer, then stood and headed for the door. Opening it, he found one of the nurses waiting for him out in the hall, a nervous look on her face. She was rather new, probably less than a few months on the job, because he couldn't remember her name.

"Yes?"

"Doctor Shellers has an MRI scheduled for her tomorrow," the nurse informed him, with a nod towards the display board mounted on the wall. He glanced at it and saw that it was due in the afternoon, right in the middle of his shift. "We know you like to be there, but scheduling couldn't get any other openings and Doctor Shellers said not to wait on it."

Cael nodded in understanding and heaved a sigh. Try as he might, he couldn't always be there when Ray's tests were run, especially with the hospital as busy as it was recently.

"I'll be here before work in the morning," he informed the nurse. "I'll talk to Dr. Shellers then."

"Alright."

Shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, Cael trudged off down the hall towards the elevator.

* * *

:_Noted. I will call again if we find another shard._

There was a long silence as the comm. screen fell dark and certain relays powered down. In the few seconds that passed, Helix entertained the idea of maybe, just maybe, investing in another security terminal for his lab. Sure, it would set him back a couple thousand credits, but it would be worth it just to make sure that certain transmissions had a lot harder time finding their way through to him.

:_And just how many shards are there, Helix?_:

The new voice had a tone like an elementary calculator, no emotion, just bland numerical values turned into audio. He had expected the question to take much longer to reach him, but then again he had also expected to actually get in a full recharge cycle. Things just had a way of not happening as they were supposed to.

"Nineteen," he answered, turning his chair so he could see the monitor that had lit up. It was a different one every time, which at least kept things interesting. How that was accomplished wasn't an area of Helix's expertise, though he was relatively sure it had something to do with networking. Never-the-less, it was always unnerving to come face to face with that singular glowing optic. He managed to keep himself from shuddering. "Ten non-uniform fragments and nine cut out from the precise geometric seams."

In the pause following this announcement, Helix again pulled up the screen with the Allspark diagram. Something about it had been causing an itch at the back of his processor. He stared at the rotating diagram, optics squinting in concentration.

"Aha!"

:_Yes?_:

"Not nineteen," Helix said, not in the least bit surprised that his 'employer' hadn't severed the connection. He tapped out several things on the control panel to pull up a magnified view of a certain section of the diagram. The lines there had been showing a discrepancy on the normal scale. Under magnification, however, it showed that there was another minuscule piece to the puzzle. "There are twenty. One is so small that the reconstruction program did not acknowledge its significance."

:_But as you stated before, each shard is still charge with energy. Does the size of the piece directly correspond with the amount of energy contained by it?_:

"Depends on how it's used."

There was silence, which indicated either that the intended joke had flown over the head of the recipient or that Shockwave was not amused. Judging by the narrowed glare being directed his way, Helix gathered that it was probably the latter. He made a mental memo to keep his interface jokes to himself from that point on.

"Look, it's the Allspark; no one knows for sure how it reacts to anything. Could be that maybe the smallest piece of it is the least powerful of the bunch; after all, the program did overlook it. But Primus is a sneaky bastard and I wouldn't put it past him to play the inverse."

:_Your blasphemy is not amusing_:

"All I'm saying is to be prepared for anything and everything when the Allspark is involved," Helix returned, rubbing at his left temple. "I've dedicated my entire career to understanding the damn thing and all it's done is give me a perpetual processor ache."

:_You will contact me when you have more information_:

"Yeah, yeah. Just make sure-"

:_Your payment has already been transferred_:

"Oh goody."

The screen went dark, but there was a violet after-image burned into the screen of that strange singular optic. It remained for some time, eventually fading back to the black of the inactive monitor.

"I really have to get some upgrades in here."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer :** Contrary to popular belief, I don't own Transformers.

**Note :** Er, well, this chapter took longer than I thought it would.

**The Simple Things**

Chapter Two

Cael had just logged on to his work computer when the supervisor started ranting about the unorthodox additions the operators had added to the call book. Curiousity overrode his weariness for the present moment, and he leaned across the desk to pick up his copy of the code list from off the top of the computer tower. There was a printed sheet of paper taped to the inside front cover, apparently added by the middle shift crew. It held a short enumerated list that seemed to simply consist of several modifications of existing call signs, to be affixed to the standard codes when necessary. What interested him however, was the explanations for each code and the accompanying note to relay any and all instances of each directly to Captain Fanzone instead of to the patrol car nearest the affected area.

Frowning, Cael put on his headset and typed in his access code for the network, mentally attempting to brace himself for whatever call came through first. Not even five seconds after hitting enter did his monitor light up in indication of the beginning of another busy day.

"Nine-one-one, please state your emergency," he said into the microphone, quickly pulling up a new report log on the screen. He listened as the person on the line relayed a scene that involved his next door neighbor having demolished his kid's bike and the mail box with his over-sized truck. He recognized the voice, only because he'd dealt with it three times before. It always involved the neighbor's truck, the mail box, and some expensive toy left out on the lawn by the guy's kid. Last time, it was a skateboard. "Yes, sir. I understand sir. I'm showing an officer in your area, I'll have him stop by and take down your information sir."

As that call ended, Cael dared to sneak a sip of his coffee.

This was going to be a long day.

* * *

The room wasn't of the typical kind usually found in a hospital. Instead of antiseptic, it smelled like caramel popcorn. Where all the other walls were a sterile white, the three free walls in this chamber were decorated with drawings torn from the pages of dollar store sketchbooks. The pictures were random, everything from birds to badly drawn people to rather accurate sketches of the cars in the parking lot outside. Most of them were out of proportion and almost all were varying shades of purple.

The occupant of the room was a small, skinny child of indeterminate age. She sat on the bed with a race car blanket tied around her waist and an oxygen line stuck in her nose. Her eyes were glued to the television mounted in the corner near the ceiling, a bucket of caramel popcorn set in front of her. There was an IV drip stuck in her left wrist, the bag hanging half full from it's hook nearby, but it didn't seem to cause the kid much irritation as she crunched on her snack. So engrossed in the scenes on the screen, she hardly noticed the nurse slip in with a wheel chair.

"Hello, Ray," the nurse greeted, pushing the chair aside for the moment so she could check the IV. "Whatcha watching?"

"J'rassic park," the tiny girl answered, not even breaking her gaze from the television. "S'got digh-no-saurs."

"Really? What kind?"

"S'got v'lossi-raptors 'n brachosaurs 'n terratops 'n dromasaurs 'n..."

She paused, eyes glazing over as she ran through several lines of thought in an effort to remember what else.

"...'n a big terror-an-a-saurus rex!"

"Wow," the nurse commented, in an amused ton that almost wasn't fake. "Which one's your favorite, Ray?"

"Mmm...I'ah like...mmm, 's called a pack-i-che-flow-saurus! S'got a big thick skull 'n it can smash stuff like trees 'n rocks 'n walls like BANG!!"

She clapped her hands together for emphasis, eyes returning to the screen.

"Sounds like a real cool dino there," the nurse said with a nod. "Think you can pause the movie for a minute? Doctor Shellers asked me to take you down to the MRI room."

"M'kay."

A remote was produced from within the recesses of her blanket and the screen froze. The girl then clambored off the bed and into the chair with a practiced motion, although it took several more minutes to get everything else in order to leave the room.

"Know what?" Ray asked as the nurse wheeled her out into the hall. "Know what I wanna be when I grow up!?"

"What do you want to be?"

"I'ma be a p'leontologist like that guy in the movie! I'ma dig up digh-no-saurs!"

"I thought you wanted to be a veterinarian."

"Nu-uh, not enny more," Ray said, shaking her head. "Vet-rin-ary-ans hafta do yicky stuff. All p'leontologists do is dig up bones. Nuffin yicky 'bout bones."

"I guess you have a point there."

* * *

The park was always less enjoyable when in a foul mood. Having already gone through the stages of disbelief and sadness in her reaction to her eviction from Sumdac Tower, she had neatly transitioned into the most feared of all stages -- anger. Currently, she was on the swingset, swinging with the kind of ferocity usually seen in children who have consumed too much sugar. If she kicked her feet just right, she could imagine that she was executing one of the fancy ninja moves that Prowl had taught her on a certain stuck-up pink sunglass wearing jerk.

"You know, if you swing any harder you'll go over the bar."

Sari blinked, her vengeful imaginings vanishing in an instant. Forgetting to kick her legs forward to keep up her momentum, she came to a jerky stop to find a scraggly haired boy sitting sideways on the seat adjacent to hers.

"If you go over the bar, you'll be thrown backwards in time," he continued, as if she wasn't staring at him for interrupting a perfectly good internal rage-fest. "My cousin told me and my older brother that a while back. He actually managed to do it too."

"What happened to him?"

"Broke his arm and two ribs."

"I thought you said if you swing over the bar you go backwards in time," Sari reiterated with a confused look. The conversation was suitably interesting enough to capture her direct attention. "Doesn't sound like it worked."

"Oh, well, that's because time travel is only technically possible if the current universe branches off to compensate. Has to do with abiding the laws of trans-dimensional physics."

"Right."

Sari sighed, glancing back towards the skyline at Sumdac Towers.

"I don't think time travel's going to help in this case anyways."

"Yeah, it rarely does," the boy said, flipping over to face frontways in his seat. "I'm Matt, by the way."

"I'm Sari."

"I'd crack a joke about that but I don't think your in the mood to appreciate it right now."

"Why're you talking to me anyways?"

"Everyone else is at school."

"Oh."

Sari looked down at her boots, pigtails drooping.

"So what's wrong?"

"You really wanna know?"

"Sure."

Taking in a deep breath, Sari kicked her feet against the ground and started swinging again.

"My dad's missing," she announced, at the upwards end of the arc, imagination kicking in again as she threw her legs out and picture smashing those stupid sunglasses off of Porter C. Powell's face. Gravity pulled her back and she continued. "I got kicked out of my house by some guy who works for my dad's company."

She swung back up.

"A gamer nerd who's tried to kill my friends twice now took over my room."

She swung back down.

"And to top it all off there's no proof I even exist!"

She swung back up.

"It's enough to make me wanna scream!"

"Wow..."

Sari stopped swinging again, a dulled down annoyed expression on her face.

"Freaked you out, huh?"

"No, not really, Matt answered, looking somewhat thoughtful. "You'd probably fit right in at my place. We're all weird there."

"Bet I can top it."

"Bet you can't."

"Sure I can," Sari informed him, with the air of someone who's holding all the right cards. "Bet you a hundred bucks!"

"Okay."

Usually, this would have given any normal person a small mental conundrum, but Matt seemed determined and Sari was definitely not going to back down. The scruffy headed boy screwed up his face in concentration, in an apparent attempt to collect his thoughts.

"I live with my dad," he started, scratching at the side of his face in an absent fashion. "He likes collecting old cars. There's at least twelve of them on the lawn, five in the garage, and one in the living room. My brother thinks he might be developing telekinetic powers and uses the attic as his superhero base. My cousin lives in the basement making wierd gadgets that sometimes reverse the gravitational field of my bedroom. Yesterday, I woke up and the floor was definitely not where it should have been."

Sari stared at him, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it in order to process the informataion that had just been presented.

"Well," she said after a moment of thought. "My best friends are all giant alien robots that turn into cars."

"Really?"

"Yeah, don't you watch the news?"

"Not since my cousin took apart the television."

"Nine-one-one, please state your emergency."

* * *

Cael was on break, quietly slurping ramen noodles while his computer displayed a screensaver consisting of various scanned images from his sister's discarded coloring ventures. At the desk next to him sat Ian, who usually wandered in around lunch time and ocassionally brought donuts from his secondary job across town. The kid appeared to be listening intently to what sounded like a rather panicked caller, although his expression was slowly transitioning from professional seriousness to a look of absolute panic. After a few seconds of reassuring the person on the other end of the line, he covered the microphone and leaned over.

"Uh, what's the call number for a robot dinosaur attack?"

Pausing mid-slurp, a noodle hanging out of his mouth, Cael leaned over and handed his open code book to Ian, tapping the note taped to the front cover. The kid examined it for a moment, then opened up another line for transmit, glancing down at the book to double check.

"Dispatch to Captain Fanzone," he said in the hesitant tone of one uncertain as to whether or not they were going to be yelled at. "Uh, we got a...nine-zero-five-vee-dee-bee...um."

:What!? What's that s'posed to mean!?:

Ian winced visibly, snatching off the headphones in a hurry. Doing so also yanked the jack out of the computer, lending everyone in the area to be an audio witness.

:Well!?:

"Er, well, the code-book says that's the call sign for a robot dinosaur attack so..."

:Who came up with that!?:

"I don't know sir," Ian responded, looking extremely embarassed as everyone in the call center was now staring at him. "Probably one of the night shift..."

:Well, where's this dinobot attacking?:

"Detroit Metro Hospital, sir. Caller said it's pretty much demolished the MRI room and--"

He was cut off by the sound of Cael choking on a noodle, as well as a rush of static on the other end of the line as Fanzone attempted to open up another frequency. Feedback squealed over the channel, briefly covering up an argument over who should attempt the Heimlich Maneuver. However, by the time the disagreement ended, Cael's chair was empty, his keys were missing, and Ian was confirming that the Captain had, after fifteen tries, not been successful in his attempts to meddle with the radio.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer :** I don't own Transformers.

**Note :** I'm not entirely happy with the last third of this chapter. I kind of wanted to include a scene with Cael freaking out and panicking, but he's apparently stuck in a traffic jam inside my brain at the moment.

**The Simple Things**

Chapter Three

"Well? What's going on!?" Captain Fanzone yelled at one of the officers who had arrived at the hospital before him. Several others were running around helping the doctors and nurses move a few patients into temporary tents.

"Uh, well," began the officer, looking extremely unnerved at having been put on the spot like that. "It seems there's a..."

He paused, flipping through a large and colorful book that appeared to have been appropriated from the local library. Upon finding an appropriate page, he held it up for the Captain to see.

"It looks like this one."

There was a rather cartoonish dipiction of a dinosaur with a domed skull and few stubby horns sticking out of the back of it's head. For some reason it was head-butting a tree. Beneath the illustration was a short paragraph about the peculiar looking dinosaur, including a pronunciation guide for verbal usage of its name. Fanzone vaguely remembered sitting through an old movie about dinosaurs with on of his brother-in-law's kids and finding himself laughing when one of them rammed itself headfirst into the side of a jeep. The folks in the film had called it a 'Pachy' for short, probably because the original name was too much of a mouthful.

He also recalled, through more recent experience, that none of the Dinobots in any way resembled a Pachy.

"Where is it?"

"The left wing, sir," the officer answer, pointing. "In MRI and X-Ray. They--"

He was cut off by the sound of a random collection of vehicles approaching. Captain Fanzone sighed irratably and turned around in time to watch the Autobots park and transform just a few feet away. Obviously, they had been listening in on the inter-city police radio frequencies again, as he hadn't really wanted to deal with them after that fiasco down at the docks.

Thankfully, it was Prowl who spoke up first.

"One of the Dinobots?" he asked, glancing between Fanzone and the building.

"I don't know about that," Fanzone answered, pointedly ignoring everyone else. He held up the book and pointed at the page. "I was told it's one of these, but last time I checked none of the Dinobot's looks like this. Said it showed up in the MRI room about a half hour ago."

Prowl took the book examining the page. It only took a few seconds before the rest of the group was looking over his shoulder, much to the ninja-bot's annoyance.

"That is one ugly looking lizard thing," Sentinel remarked, squinting at the page. It was obvious from the mild irritation in the expressions of the other bot's that his presence wasn't their idea. "It doesn't look that big."

"It is not a lizard," Prowl corrected, handing the book back to Captain Fanzone. "Dinosaurs were warm-blooded reptiles, and despite it's seemingly small size, it is thought by some scientists that this particular dinosaur used it's domed head to fight off larger predators which makes it, at the very least, capable of inflicting a moderate amount of damage."

"Uh, how do you know that?" Bulkhead inquired, looking perplexed.

"There was a documentary about it on one of the nature channels."

"Who cares? This is hardly worth the time it took to drive over here. It-"

Sentinel was cut off by a crash emanating from within the building, followed by a loud and decidedly non-human shriek. One of the doors near the front entrance opened and several more people ran out, a couple pushing wheelchairs with patients in them. A doctor, mostly identifiable by the lab coat he was wearing over his day blue scrubs, dashed up to Captain Fanzone.

"It busted into the ER, I think," the doctor explained hurriedly, hands wildly gesturing towards the the side parking lot. "We got everyone out though, they're headed for Eastern Regional."

"Allright," Fanzone said, turning to squint up at Prowl. "Just what're we gonna do about this."

"Well..."

"I fail to see how this is any of our business," Sentinel interrupted, folding his arms across his chest. "This-"

"This may very well have been caused by an Allspark fragment," Optimus cut in, frowning. "We-"

"You don't know that! The ship's scanners didn't pick up anything!"

"We won't know unless we look."

"I'll go in," Prowl volunteered, glancing back at the building. "Maybe I can get whatever it is to calm down..."

"Sounds good," Optimus agreed with a nod. "The rest of us will block the exits in case it decides to run out."

"Sounds good? That's the worst plan I ever heard!"

"Well, if you want to _**head**_ off and do something else, be my guest."

Sentinel glared at the smirk on Optimus's face, but didn't argue any further as he turned to take up a position on the wing of the hospital farthest from where the action was. Bulkhead shuffled off to block off the ER entrance, Prowl walking with him since that was the door closest to where this mystery dinobot was currently located. Fanzone, however, stayed right where he was looking shrewdly up at Optimus Prime.

"You're not going to let him live that down, are you?"

"Nope."

* * *

Bumblebee fidgetted.

This in itself wasn't exactly remarkable seeing as pretty much everytime he tried to sit still he ended up twitching in some way. Hyperactivity was his speciality, after all, and having to stay in one place for more than two hours was not his idea of being productive. And even though he wasn't the only one on base right now, Ratchet had made it pretty clear that he wasn't in the mood to talk.

Not that he ever was.

He could play video games, but the collection he'd accumulated was mostly made up of two player games and since his favorite opponent had declared that she was going on a walk in the park, he was faced with one of the things he dreaded most -- boredom. He'd already driven a loop around the city twice, gotten yelled at by several pedestrians, and chased by one of the traffic bots occasionally posted around the city to catch speed limit violators. Of course, he'd been able to get some amusement out of outrunning the traffic bot, but it just wasn't the same without Sari there to cheer him on.

"This bites."

Okay, so it hadn't been all that bad. He'd spent some time on the internet investigating commonly used human slang, which had led to a parallel expedition to discover the definitions of certain words. Some of them, he wished he hadn't read, but then again, a lot of them sounded like they'd be fun to use in certain circumstances.

Bumblebee sighed, glancing up and down the street only to spot a familiar pair of pigtails bobbing along the fence-line a few blocks down. His grin faded, however, when he saw that Sari was not alone. She was accompanied by a human boy of about the same age with tangled hair and even less of a fashion sense than he was accustomed to seeing on this planet.

Both of them had ice cream.

As they approached the gate, Bumblebee's audios caught on to their conversation. It sounded suspiciously science related.

"--which she said wouldn't cause a disruption in the Earth's magnetic field, but my dad said she's not allowed to use anything that requires the use of anti-matter...whatever that is."

"You're cousin is wierd."

"This coming from someone who's favorite double scoop flavors are Bubblegum and Mint Chocolate Chip."'

"Well, Rocky Road is gross," Sari said in an indignant tone. "It's got almonds or whatever."

"I think it's walnuts..."

"So, who cares?"

"I like walnuts."

"Well, you're wierd too."

By the time that statement was made, they were standing in front of the rolled up garage-style entrance to the building and Bumblebee was beginning to wonder whether or not they would notice him sitting there. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at the two of them.

Being ignored was starting to get annoying.

Fortunately, his movement got the attention of the boy, whose gaze went slightly frosted. Ice cream dribbled out of the cone and down his fingers unnoticed, and the hinge holding his jaw shut malfunctioned, making it droop slightly. Sari poked him, but it didn't have any effect.

"Wow," she remarked in surprise, looking over at Bumblebee. "I think he's in shock or something."

"So what?" Bumblebee asked, putting on a grumpy face and looking away. "It's not my fault."

"What's wrong with you?"

"Oh nothing. Nothing at all -- except you left me here with grumpy-bot!"

"Well, s-o-r-r-y. You could've come with me, you know, but you didn't so..."

Bumblebee blinked, having not realized that the 'walk in the park' thing had been an open invitation.

"Oh," he said, looking embarassed. Now he felt kind of silly for having sulked throughout the afternoon. "So who's this guy?"

"His name's Matt," Sari answered, crunching on the remains of her ice cream cone. "We had a bet over who had a wierder life. According to him, I won, so he bought me ice cream."

"Why would you bet about something like that?"

She shrugged in response, then leaned over to wave a hand in front of the scraggly headed boy's face.

"Hey, wake up!"

"Uh..."

"You alright?"

"I think I've got brain freeze," Matt answered, looking down at his ice cream cone and its now melted contents. "Or not...um."

"Matt, this is Bumblebee," Sari informed him, waving a hand in the air at the yellow mech by way of introduction. "He's my best friend, well, one of my best friends."

"And you turn into a car?"

"Yes," Bumblebee answered with a grin. "Yes, I do."

"Sweet."

* * *

Prowl ducked into the ER lobby, taking note that, while the ceiling in this section was high enough for him not to bump his head, it did not appear to be the same with the corridors leading off of it. A few of the lobby chairs were overturned but other than that there appeared to be nothing wrong. Frowning, he turned towards the nearest corridor to begin his search but froze upon hearing a noise emanating from the other side of the receptionist's counter. He spun, shuriken at the ready, only to catch the tail end of a black blurr dashing out the door.

"Bulkhead, it's headed your way!" he shouted both out loud and over the comm frequencies, so that the others would hear. He ran back out the doors only to freeze just outside. "What the...?"

"Uh," Bulkhead murmurred, somewhat distressed. "A little help?"

Recovering from his shock, Prowl smirked.

"Well, it looks like you made a new friend."

Bulkhead frowned, holding his arm up and away from his body in order to better survey what was currently clinging to it. It did indeed look like the mechanical equivalent of a pachycephalosaurus, complete with a golden domed skull and two horns sticking out the back of its head. It had its black arms clamped tightly around the armor on the lumbering green Autobot's upper arm, the rest of its body dangling in the air. Every few seconds it's tail would twitch, and, from the glint in it's optics, Prowl could tell that it was highly amused by the entire situation.

"What the slag is that!?"

Turning, he saw both Optimus and Sentinel approaching, the latter staring rather apprehensibly at the little robotic dino.

"That is our mystery dinobot," Prowl answered, glancing back at the tiny bot. It had somehow climbed up higher on Bulkhead's arm and was now attempting to burrow it's face into his arm. "It seems to like Bulkhead."

"Where did it come from?" Optimus asked, stepping in closer for a better look. The little bot lifted it's head from Bulkhead's shoulder and chirped at him in an almost curious fashion. Within the next three seconds he found himself knocked to the ground, the little bot now clinging to his neck. "Er..."

Sentinel started to laugh, but was silenced a moment later when the tiny dinobot transferred itself to his leg.

"AAAAHHHH!! GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!!"

The Elite Guard officer hopped around, shaking his leg in an attempt to free it from the little bot's grasp. In response it giggled almost shrilly, grinning and clearly enjoying the ride. After several seconds, however, Sentinel lost his balance and fell flat on his aft. Fun ruined, the robot dino shook itself and looked over at Prowl, head tilted as if contemplating whether or not he was a worthy target.

The ninja bot crouched, bringing himself to eye level with the mechanical pachy. He noticed several things about it that his first precursory glance had not picked up. For one, the bot did not appear to be made entirely of metal. Only the gold colored portions and the parts covering it's spinal column had the light reflective qualities of typical plating. The rest of it had a texture similar to thick plastic. It's coloring was different as well. Where the other Dinobot's were grey, this one was black, and it's optics were a sharp shade of violet.

"I wonder..."

"What is it Prowl?"

"Fanzone said it originally showed up in the room containing the MRI machine," Prowl answered, still watching the little bot as it prodded Sentinel's leg. "I think if we looked in that room now, the machine will be missing."

"So?" Sentinel asked, looking extremely annoyed. "And you, cut it out!!"

The tiny dinobot simply giggled in response, the horns on it's head wiggling ever so slightly.

"Didn't Ultra Magnus's contact on Cybertron warn that the Allspark shards would have...odd effects? Perhaps this is merely one such effect."

"Come off it! You don't honestly think a piece of the Allspark made this...**_thing_**!"

He waved a hand at the bot in question, who took it as an open invitation for grabbing. The blue mech's shoulders slumped for a moment before he narrowed his eyes down at the little bot.

"Grah."

"Little slagger."

It stuck out it's glossa at him, before releasing his arm and running back over to Bulkhead.

"Well, I like it," the green mech said, scooping the little bot up in his arms. "He's kinda cute."

"I think Prowl may be right," Optimus said, frowning only slightly as the little bot again clamped onto Bulkhead's arm. "We'll have to take it back to the ship to verify it though."

"Oh no. There's no way you're bringing that _**thing**_ on the ship!"


End file.
